Chew on this: Ty Cobb's dentures sell for $18K via SCP

Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb was known for doing some talking with his cleats on the field -- maybe his bat, too -- but the headline-generating piece of sports memorabilia auctioned this weekend came from the years after his legendary career.

The Georgia Peach's dentures -- yes, his false teeth -- were sold by Laguna Niguel, Calif.-based SCP Auctions on Saturday and a dozen bidders ran up the price on these legendary chompers and an original brass holder.

The final cost? A cool $18,840 after an opening bid of just $5,000.

They have a little more history to them, too, with details also coming with their documents included in the auction.

Not everybody can land a piece of baseball history that was once on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., but these were there for more than a year -- so add that to their legacy beyond, well, their original home and original use. They also originally were owned by Cobb biographer Al Stump before they ended up in the legendary collection of Barry Halper. 

They were originally estimated to sell for around $500 in a 1999 Sotheby's auction of Halper's massive stash of everything baseball -- you can see everything that was sold (items both good and bad in terms of accuracy and research over the years as well as plenty of unique and downright amazing pieces) in the auction catalogs that were later sold in book form here (at right). But, they ended up selling for a lot more than that -- a cool $6,500 to Karen Shemonsky, the daughter of a dentist, who told her story to Sports Illustrated back in 2001. That was just before they went to Cooperstown to hang out with a display of items previously owned by Halper. That corresponding paperwork and other pieces tracing its history came along with them also was included in the sale.

"I first saw them in a color photo in my husband's copy of Business Week," Shemonsky told Sports Illustrated. "The teeth were open, and the caption said, 'Ty's teeth could be yours for $300 to $500.' I thought, 'Five hundred dollars? For Ty Cobb's teeth? That's a steal.'"

For a time before Cooperstown they were on display in their home, according to the story.

"I surrounded the teeth with a glove and a ball and books about Cobb," she said. "Made a real nice display with the dentures."

Beyond that she also added a philosophical take on what is, without question, a weird item. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," she said. "I've been collecting all my life."

So, looking at the numbers, the newest sale isn't exactly a million-dollar Honus Wagner or Mickey Mantle kind of return -- but still some serious gains over that past sale and that original $500 estimate And, unlike those high-profile baseball cards, these dentures are the only ones that exist.

Chew on that thought the next time some weird item out there in the collecting world just isn't for you ... it just might be a centerpiece for somebody else.

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